About Me
I'm Meg Marcie Hooper, a textiles based fashion designer
Working outside of traditional pattern cutting methods, I make a lot of my own fabrics and yarn. The technique I am most skilled and experienced in is crochet, experimenting with as many non-conventional materials as possible. Striving to keep hand crafts alive, my practice includes a range of other traditional textile techniques.
Due to the pandemic, the first year of my degree was spent working from home. This is when my interest for repurposing and upcycling grew. Using materials I already owned and crocheting with materials that wouldn’t normally be considered ‘workable’ items. This inspiration transferred into my final collection which was largely made using recycled or repurposed materials, only buying new when there was no alternative. I made yarn from recycled jeans and created a mask using a recycled potato sack. My collection was designed with inclusivity and diversity in mind.
INSPIRATION
Lived Experiences
Drawn from my own experience of grief and homage to my friend, Hidden Identities is a body of work representing my life journey so far. The colour palette and mood begins with pink tactile fabrics indicative of the world’s ornamental beauty from the perspective of a child. Shifting through colour scheme, fabric and texture, the use of denim, leather and mismatched fabrics indicates feeling lost and out of place. Finally, the darker colour palette represents a loss of self and a period of mourning.
The ribcage is symbolic of death, not only of those who have died but the part of those left behind that dies with them. The inspiration for masks stemmed after seeing someone at Cardiff Train Station wearing a realistic rat’s head mask. I was intrigued by this person’s concealed identity. I began to think about how identities morph and shift after experiencing trauma. We all hide our identity to some degree as you never truly know what hides behind someone’s smile.
MY WORK
PORTFOLIOS
CONCEPT
CONCEPT
CONCEPT
CONCEPT
TREND, COLOURS AND FABRICS
LOOK ONE
LOOK ONE
LOOK TWO
LOOK TWO
LOOK THREE
LOOK THREE
LOOK FOUR
LOOK FOUR
MASK ONE
MASK TWO
LINE UP
RANGE PLAN
CLO3D
FINAL IMAGES OF "HIDDEN IDENTITIES" COLLECTION
DETAIL
Ribcage Corset
The close up images from my photoshoot represents the beautiful details and intricacies of the hundreds of beads I used to embellish my ribcage corset. Whilst the structure of the corset is representative of death, the embellishment brings beauty to a macabre symbol of death as pearls indicate purity and reference heaven. The red rhinestones and bead details are designed to represent the blood vessels of the heart which is why they trail out from the centre of the garment. Whilst I took inspiration from the anatomy of the human body, I also wanted the blood to be representative of the wounding and pain felt with grief. Each bead carefully placed onto invisible thread by hand is very intricate and time consuming work but the movement that these beads give draped across the lower rib is really beautiful. They bring life and movement to an item otherwise symbolic of death.
"It is important to look at death because it is a part of life" Alexander McQueen
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